


keep eternal spring-time on thy face

by littlelizardtails (dragonfucker)



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: M/M, because i'm not ready to try and write anyone from canon yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 19:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16024739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonfucker/pseuds/littlelizardtails
Summary: Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, Act 3, Scene 1."In summer's drought I'll drop upon thee still;In winter with warm tears I'll melt the snowAnd keep eternal spring-time on thy face"





	keep eternal spring-time on thy face

They first met in the spring.

 

He’d just turned eighteen the past winter solstice. The ice had only barely started to melt, the bravest of wildflowers just beginning to break through the barricade of snow that kept them from the sun. They were preparing for the  Kukinnan Päivä , young warriors from all throughout the kingdom gathering for the chance to show to their king that they too were bold enough to break through and shine before him.

 

He had ran down the hill from the castle, and just as he passed by the stables, a body fell from the sky and landed right in front of him. He screamed.

 

His first thought was that it was a black omen indeed, to begin the year with a corpse landing at his feet. His second was that it was a cruel joke that the corpse had to be so handsome.

 

Then the corpse opened his eyes and stared up at him, and wheezed in pain.

 

“Shit in a bucket, where did you come from!?” He stared down at the not-corpse, then up at where he’d fallen from, before kneeling over him, trying to make sure he was okay. “Did you fall from the roof?! What were you even doing up there?! Don’t move, you could’ve broken your back taking a fool fall like that!”

 

“I’d fall for you any day,” the not-corpse gasped out, and Pryderi’s face turned as red as his hair as he spluttered for a response.

 

* * *

The not-corpse, it turned out, was named Lauri. He had come for the Kukinnan Päivä, from one of the tiny villages on the northern coast of their kingdom, but would happily stay, he said, for nothing more than the pleasure of Pryderi’s company. Pryderi was fairly certain the fall had cracked his head.

 

The castle doctor declared him healthy enough, however, and Pryderi could do nothing more than scurry away and try to be flustered in private.

 

Still, he watched the contest with more interest than he had previous years. Lauri, it turned out, was very, very good indeed. Enough so that he conquered all the other yearling competitors, and won the privilege of being honoured by the king himself at the feast that was held afterwards, given a place at the royal table as well as an invitation to join the royal guard.

 

As the king’s youngest son, that meant Pryderi got to sit at that table with him. Every time he looked up at Lauri, the other young man was looking right back at him. Every time he looked away, he could feel his face grow warmer and warmer.

 

This, Pryderi decided, was the most ridiculous nonsense he’d ever experienced.

 

* * *

 

“If you think,” he said hotly, “To curry some kind of--of  _ royal favour _ \--Then you’re sorely mistaken in how you’re going about it!”

 

It had been three months, and every couple of weeks there was a new gift from Rauli. Hand-carved tokens of affection, every one of them; Pryderi kept them hidden under one of the floorboards beneath his bed, for fear one of his older brothers would find them and make a mockery of them.

 

“The only royal favour I crave is yours, my prince,” Lauri said. The words were stated so simply, so plainly, that Pryderi was at a loss for what to say.

 

“I’m the youngest of  _ seven! _ There’s no-- no political power to be gained!”

 

“Well that’s a relief,” Lauri said. “I don’t think I’d have much head for politics.”

 

“There won’t be any--any land or gold to inherit either! I’ll be lucky to get some minor household in the middle of nowhere to manage!”

 

“Perhaps it will be near my home village, then--I’m sure my family would adore you.”

 

Pryderi floundered, speechless, before finally finding words to voice. “You’re mad!” he finally exclaimed helplessly. “Completely and utterly mad!”

 

“Madly in love with  _ you, _ ” Lauri corrected with a dopey grin, and Pryderi had to cover his face with his hands in horrified embarrassment as the butterflies in his stomach took flight.

 

* * *

 

They courted in the summer.

 

Once he’d given up fighting it, it was frighteningly easy to fall in love with Lauri. He was earnest and honest in his joy and adoration, and delighted in showing Pryderi new things each day. It didn’t hurt that he spent a lot of time at the castle now, being trained among the new recruits in the royal guard; Pryderi spent many a night tending his bruises and cuts, as Lauri taught him about woodcarving, his own mother’s trade.

 

Still, by Pryderi’s insistence, they met in secret. Pryderi knew that his greatest value to the kingdom was in his marriage eligibility to another kingdom, to bolster the ties that allied them all together; his father would not look kindly on a tryst with a mere soldier, no matter how talented.

 

“They’re beautiful,” Pryderi whispered, awed by the sight of the lovely red butterflies that swarmed across the hillside, making the lush grasses and wildflowers come alive with movement.

 

“They reminded me of you,” Lauri said, and Pryderi shoved him off their blanket and stole his sandwich in retaliation.

 

Every time they met, Pryderi could feel his heart melting as Lauri’s affection affected him. He’d encountered flattery before, but it was Lauri’s openness and sincerity that cut through Pryderi’s guard and struck him again and again. He crumbled before the onslaught, and every day felt himself leaning more and more towards surrender.

 

“You’re terrible,” Pryderi told him, breath ghosting over Lauri’s lips.

 

“I’m so sorry,” Lauri whispered back. “Let me make it up to you?” And Pryderi _did._

 

Auringonjuhla came around on the summer solstice. Children played delightful games all day, competing for prizes, and the people feasted and danced to celebrate another promising year. When night fell, they were still dancing, and Pryderi finally gave a gift to Lauri--when he asked him to dance with him in front of all the city, and let Lauri spin him wildly around the Ukko Tree.

 

“Marry me, Pryderi,” Lauri asked breathlessly, as fireworks lit the sky overhead.

 

“Yes, you daft fool!” Pryderi cried out, embracing him with a kiss as the people cheered.

 

* * *

 

They parted in the autumn.

 

With their love declared so boldly in the open, and with such hearty approval by the common folk who’d been long endeared by Lauri as one of their own, and one of their best, Pryderi’s father would not openly bar them from being wed. Yet still, he found a way to keep them from one another, when Lauri received his marching orders, sending him to the Breach.

 

“I cannot refuse,” Lauri gasped against Pryderi’s lips. “All the five kingdoms-- must do their part, to defend against Xadia’s forces!”

 

“He only sends you to get you away from  _ me! _ ” Pryderi bit out, turning away to hide his face against Lauri’s shoulder. “You could  _ die _ out there! To monsters, to elves, to dragons--and he sends you there for no other reason than because he would not see us wed!”

 

“But because I am the best of our soldiers,” Lauri said, with a small, sad smile, “I will go anyway. I could do real good there, Pryderi. The border might be far from our lands, but that only means it would take longer for them to reach us--not that they would not reach us at all.”

 

“It’s not fair,” Pryderi whispered, Lauri’s shirt wet and rough from his tears.

 

“It’s war, my love,” Lauri said, stroking Pryderi’s hair gently. “It will never be fair. But if I could do some good there, and help protect our kingdom--how could I refuse to go?”

 

“Promise me you’ll come back to me,” Pryderi begged.

 

“The dragon king himself could not keep me away,” Lauri swore, and Pryderi believed him, because Lauri had never said anything he did not mean as truth.

 

They did not go to the Sadon Anteliaisuus feast. They spent it instead in each other’s arms, clinging to each other’s warmth, burning it into their memories so they would not forget while they were far from one another. In the quiet, peaceful hours before dawn, they exchanged hand-carved rings; Lauri’s, a beautiful masterpiece of smoothly carved vines and flowers, Pryderi’s, a rough-hewn novice’s trinket, etched with his prayers for a safe return.

 

It was a cool, crisp sunrise when Lauri’s unit departed through the castle gates, to begin the long journey to the Breach. Pryderi stood atop the castle walls and kept watch long after their banners faded into the distance and were lost, holding the ring Lauri had carved for him clutched close to his heart.

 

* * *

 

 

Lauri died in the winter.

 

A caravan of soldiers, their duty to the Breach complete, arrived just after Tähdenvalonjuhla--three days before the solstice. The bore with them the names of those who had perished.

 

Pryderi was silent when he heard Lauri’s name from the list. Though he heard what they said, he could not believe their words. He could not believe. He could not. Lauri had promised, had  _ sworn _ .

 

But they carried before Pryderi the shield Lauri had carried, the sword he had wielded so well--and the ring Pryderi had given him, the night before he’d left. The ring, Pryderi took, and kept; the rest was carried onward, to be returned to the family Lauri had left behind, up on the northern coast.

 

The winter solstice that year was colder than Pryderi had ever known. He spent it dressed in black, with a veil hiding his face and tears from the world. He mourned alone, for his family would not mourn with him, and his guilt would not let him write to Lauri’s family, as had it not been for him, their son might yet have lived.

 

No body could be carried back such a distance from the Breach, so Pryderi made a funeral pyre of every gift Lauri had ever made for him; on their small little boat, he let them drift far into the lake, before letting fly the flaming arrow that would burn them. He watched it burn from the shore, a solitary vigil as he wept, and kept his watch all night, gasping a dirge between his sobs.

 

He held onto nothing but the rings that were meant to wed them, worn on a loop of red ribbon around his neck.

 

* * *

 

"I will leave for the Breach with the new unit tomorrow.”

 

His father and brothers stared at him in disbelief.

 

“Are you joking?” Malcolm gaped.

 

“Have you gone mad?” Cassair cried.

 

“You’ll be dead the first time you go into battle!” Simon declared.

 

“Absolutely not, I forbid it!” their father swore, face going red, and once, Pryderi’s might have matched his, furious in being denied.

 

But a year of grieving had left Pryderi hollow, and his dead-eyed expression never changed.

 

“I did not ask your permission,” Pryderi said dully. “I only informed you out of respect to you as my king. I have completed the requisite year of training. I have surpassed the weaponmaster’s standards by far. All able warriors are allowed to serve for the protection of all the kingdoms, and healers are always needed on the border.”

 

“You are a prince of the realm! You cannot be risked in such a way!”

 

“I’m included in the line of inheritance only as a formality. Your heir already has a child of his own. Mine would be no great loss.”

 

“You would throw your life away so lightly?” Malcolm asked, baffled.

 

“You would care?” Pryderi asked coldly. “You threw away the life of my betrothed easily enough.”

 

“That’s out of line!” Simon snarled, but Pryderi had long since had enough.

 

“I will leave with the battalion in the morn, or I will leave on my own in the dead of night. But one way or another, I will leave. I have no reason to stay.”

 

“Not even for your family?” Cassair said sharply.

 

“Lauri was meant to be my family,” Pryderi said. “I leave to rejoin him once more.”

 

* * *

 

He left in the morning for the Breach, and never again looked back.

**Author's Note:**

> Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, Act 3, Scene 1.  
> "In summer's drought I'll drop upon thee still;  
> In winter with warm tears I'll melt the snow  
> And keep eternal spring-time on thy face"


End file.
